Infants and other incontinent individuals wear disposable absorbent articles such as diapers to receive and contain urine and other body exudates. Absorbent garments having fixed sides (e.g., training pants or pull-on diapers) have become popular for use on children able to walk and often who are toilet training. Many disposable pull-on garments use elastic elements secured in an elastically contractible condition in the waist and/or leg openings. Typically, in order to insure full elastic fit about the leg and the waist such as is provided with durable undergarments, the leg openings and waist opening are encircled with elasticized bands of rubber or other materials positioned along the curve of the entirety of the opening.
While it may be believed that the stretchable waist opening generating high contraction force contributes to anchor the waist opening of the pull-on diapers to the wearer's body, such high contraction force sometimes actually causes sagging of the waist opening of the pull-on diaper. The front portion of the waist opening is positioned on stomach of the wearer which is considered high motion zone repeating expansion and contraction when the wearer breathes. When the stomach expands, the contraction force becomes high to generate high anchoring force. However, as the contraction force increases, the component force of the contraction force toward the crotch from the waist portion of the wearer along the surface of the wearer also increases. When such high component force is exerted on the stomach of the wearer in which the waist circumference decreases toward the crotch of the wearer, the waist portion of the pull-on diaper could sag.
In order to reduce such sagging caused by high component force exerted on the stomach, it is conceivable to remove elastic material in the front center waist portion. However, if the elastic material is removed therefrom, another drawback occurs. Namely, the front center waist portion having no contraction force can not counteract the movement of wearer. As a result, the front waist portion flips over accidentally by the wearer's movement. Such flipping-over of the waist portion is also as problematic as sagging since it gives a poor impression of the pull-on diaper to the wearer or caregiver.
Based on the foregoing, there is a need for a disposable pull-on garment to provide an improved fit around the waist opening. There is also a need for a disposable pull-on garment to improve sagging problem around the waist portion. There is also a need for a disposable pull-on garment to improve flip-over problem in the waist portion.